Mapping Problems May Undermine Plans for New Federal Coal Leasing

Problems associated with the Department of the Interior's coal mapping program as it would effect the future leasing of coal from Federal lands are reviewed, recent actions to correct mapping problems are analyzed, and alternatives to better link coal mapping and land use planning are discussed.

Federal coal resource planning and management decisions rely on maps that are often inaccurate, unreliable, and inappropriate either to define broad planning boundaries or to support the kinds of economic, energy, and environmental trade-off decisions called for by the new Federal leasing program. Recent actions by the Geological Survey to correct the mapping problems and provide the needed data may not fill the gap. Unless a major change is made in the way basic coal data are obtained, the leasing program may not be able to make available sufficient quantities of economically minable Federal coal to meet the Nation's demands. The mapping program began as a short-term data compilation effort covering a limited portion of unleased coal lands. But, based on new mandates, the program was enlisted to provide detailed geologic maps for all Federal lands classified for possible coal leasing. Recent Geological Survey actions to improve the situation will have doubtful results because of limited resources and a lack of guidance, the decision to limit future maps to areas scheduled for leasing and thus create a major gap in information on coal development potential for lands outside lease sale areas, and lack of funding and staff to assume the projected workloads.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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